Progress toward eradicating poverty Share of countries making progress toward reducing extreme poverty by half (percent) 100
1d Reached target Off track Seriously off track
On track Insufficient data
50
0
50
100
2004 140 countries
2011 144 countries
Source: World Bank staff estimates.
Progress toward universal primary education completion Share of countries making progress toward full completion of primary education (percent)
1e
Reached target Off track Seriously off track
On track Insufficient data
100
50
0
50
100
2004 140 countries
2011 144 countries
Source: World Bank staff estimates.
Progress toward gender parity Share of countries making progress toward gender parity in primary and secondary education (percent) 100
1f Reached On track target Off track Seriously off track Insufficient data
50
0
50
100
2004 140 countries
Source: World Bank staff estimates.
4
2011 World Development Indicators
2011 144 countries
against the targets selected for the MDGs. The MDGs highlight important outcomes, but the focus on this limited set of indicators should not obscure the fact that development is a complex process whose course is determined in part by geographic location, historical circumstances, institutional capacity, and uncontrollable events such as weather and natural disasters. Success or failure, while not arbitrary or entirely accidental, still has a large component of chance. This review employs the same assessment method that World Development Indicators has used since 2004 to track progress of countries toward the time-bound and quantified targets of the MDGs. Countries are “on track” if their past progress equals or exceeds the rate of change necessary to reach an MDG target. A few countries have already reached their targets. They are counted as having achieved the goal, although some may slip back. Countries making less than necessary progress are “off track,” or “seriously off track” if their past rate progress would not allow them to reach the target even in another 25 years. The remaining countries do not have sufficient data to evaluate their progress—in some cases because there are no data for the benchmark period of 1990–99 and in others because more recent data are missing. But the situation is improving: starting from the earliest World Development Indicators progress assessments in 2004 (based on data for 1990–2002), the number of countries with insufficient data has fallen, enhancing our picture of progress toward the MDGs. For more information on the work of the World Bank and its partners to achieve the MDGs, see www.worldbank.org/mdgs, which includes a link to the World Bank’s MDG eAtlas. Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger The number of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005. New global and regional estimates, to become available later in 2011, are likely to show a continuation of past trends, although the financial crisis of 2008 and the recent surge in food prices will have slowed progress in some countries. Because household income and expenditure surveys are expensive and time consuming, they are not conducted frequently and there are often difficulties in making reliable comparisons over time or across countries.